“Why don’t we just use a Magic Eight Ball while we’re at it?”
“Listen, dude, it works. Granted, it would be best if we could monitor the guy’s vitals, too, but this is what we have to work with right now.”
“Wonderful. What else do you got?”
The third was the thing that really took the cake. Not that the Kid had recorded every conversation he’d had with Carver and me and everyone else who had been taken from Simon’s game, but he’d managed to save enough to download those conversations into a special program on his computer. This program was then able to take the different tones and pitches and inflections of each of our voices so that they could be perfectly copied under someone else’s voice.
So in theory, if I wanted to talk to someone—like an assistant director of the FBI, for instance—I could speak as clearly and simply as normal. Only the voice Edward Stark heard wouldn’t be mine. It would be Carver’s.
“Ready?” the Kid asked. He sat in front of his main computer, headphones hanging around his neck.
I sat beside him, staring at the monitor. Trying to think. Trying to get myself prepped for what I had finally decided was a terrible idea.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
The burner’s number from Stark’s email was already triggered into the computer. There was no guarantee it would still even be in service, or that if it was, Stark would answer. Still, the Kid placed the headphones over his ears and clicked his mouse. The number connected and began to ring.
It rang four times before a voice answered.
“This is Stark.”
For an instant—a split second—I didn’t know what to say, or do, or even think. I just sat there frozen. Then I said, “Hey, Ed.”
Silence. Then, incredulous, “Carver? Is that you?”
The white lines on the computer screen bounced with the cadence of the man’s voice.
“Yeah, it’s me. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. I’m just ... surprised to hear from you.”
The white bouncing lines turned green, and the Kid nodded. This meant Stark was telling the truth.
Stark asked, “How are you doing?”
“I’m great. I wanted to follow up on our email. Do you have time to talk?”
“Yes.”
The lines turned red.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
The lines stayed red.
“I understand you’re hesitant to meet,” Stark said. “I would be too after what happened. But I can assure you, I’m on your side.”
Still the lines stayed red.
I asked, “Who is Caesar?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
Still red.
“How high up does this go?”
“Very high.”
The lines turned green.
“Why does it seem like we’re talking in circles?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have time to waste. Either you give me something substantial or we have nothing to talk about.”
“It would be easier to do this in person.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I’m trying to be your friend here, Carver.”
The lines turned red again.
I said, “Was it your friendship that fucked us over down in Florida?”
Silence.
“Do me a favor, Ed. When you see Caesar next, tell him something for me, will you?”
Still silence.
“Tell him the very last thing he will see before he dies is the barrel of my gun. Can you do that for me, buddy?”
I nodded at the Kid, who clicked off before Edward Stark could say—or not say—anything else.
The Kid took the headphones off his ears, let them hang around his neck. He gave me an exaggerated thumbs-up. “So that went well.”
I said nothing. I hadn’t realized it, but my entire body had begun to tremble. Had I been trembling during my brief conversation with Stark? Had he heard it in my voice?
“Ben?”
I blinked, looked over at the Kid.
“Now what?”
“Now nothing. We got our confirmation who and what Boojum is. That’s that.”
The Kid just stared at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just as long as I’ve known you, you never struck me as someone who gives up this easily.”
“First of all, we can’t be one hundred percent certain if all those red lines were actual bullshit.”
“But—”
“Besides, what else is there to do? Ronny was right. This whole thing is way too big for us. Even with Carver it was way too big.”
“So you’re giving up, just like that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
The Kid shrugged. “I don’t know. We could track Stark down, beat him up. Would that make you feel better?”
I grinned. “Maybe a little.”
“So now what?”
“Now I guess I head back.”
The Kid said nothing.
“All right.” I sighed, clapped my hands together. “So ... if you don’t have any other ideas, you mind driving me back to the airport?”
The Kid still said nothing.
“What is it?”
“You asked before, about me holding back about Carver? I was lying to you.”
I crossed my arms. “Were you now.”
“Ben, where did Carver meet Graham?”
“In the army.”
The Kid looked at me blankly.
A flickering light bulb suddenly lit up bright in my head, and I said, “But Carver never went into the army.”
The Kid didn’t say anything.
“Then how ... how did they meet?”
The corners of the Kid’s mouth lifted, creating a somber smile. “Come on, Ben. You mean you haven’t figured that out yet?”
39
Returning to Colorado wasn’t as easy as leaving. The earliest flight I could get was very late in the day, and there was a two-hour layover in Chicago (a city which brought back bad memories), and then because of the weather the flight was delayed another two hours. I spent much of that time in a haze, thinking many different things. I barely slept, even on the plane, dozing off for a few minutes and then jerking awake. By the time my flight arrived, it was nearly six o’clock in the morning. I sent a text to Jesse letting him know I was back. He showed up in the pickup three hours later. For some reason I was expecting—and hoping—Maya to be there too, but it was just Jesse.
The first thing he said to me was, “Ian’th gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left.”
“You mean he left for good?”
Jesse nodded.
“And nobody stopped him?”
“How could we thop him? We voted, remember.”
We didn’t speak for the rest of the way home. I laid my head back against the rest and watched the passing scenery. My eyelids were heavy and I kept fighting to keep them from closing.
For some reason the farmhouse looked different than it had yesterday. Nothing external had changed, obviously, but it looked emptier somehow, and Ian’s leaving had nothing to do with it.
When Jesse parked and cut the ignition, I said, “How was Carver’s service?”
“Good. You thoulda been there.”
Outside the pickup, I took a moment to savor the fresh air, the pellucid sky, to listen to the wind stirring through the tops of the trees. Jesse had immediately gone straight toward the house, up the steps and through the front door. I started to take a few steps in that direction but then changed course and headed around the house.
I don’t know what was driving me at that moment. Maybe it was everything I’d learned yesterday—which was quite a lot compared to what I had learned in the past two years—or maybe it was my brief conversation with Edward Stark. Maybe it was what else I had learned from the
Kid, about Carver and Graham. Maybe I was feeling betrayed, lied to, suckered somehow into believing a false reality.
But there hadn’t been any maliciousness to it at all. Nobody had ever actually lied to any of us.
I walked past the house and down the hill toward the apiary. Graham didn’t appear to be among them, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t working around one of the hives.
It was early afternoon. The sky was clear, the sun bright. Yet despite this it seemed the bees had quieted down for the day. All the outside work was done and now they were busy inside their individual hives, going about depositing the nectar into the special cells, doing everything automatically because that was their nature, the only thing they knew how to do.
I waited a minute without any luck.
I turned and headed back up the hill. I kept my focus on the farmhouse, but my gaze shifted to the graves. A new wooden cross had been planted there. I stared at it for only a moment before continuing on.
Inside, Beverly was standing at the stove, stirring something in a large metal pot. Maya was sitting at the kitchen table, her one leg curled up under her. She had an elbow on the table, her one hand cradling her head, her other hand swinging a pencil back and forth between her fingers. Before her lay one of the many Sudoku books she and Beverly and Ronny and Graham played during their free time.
Maya glanced up at me first, stared a moment, returned her attention back to the book opened before her. The silent action took less than two seconds but it caused a sharp ache in my heart.
Beverly, her back to me, said, “Ronny’s downstairs.”
Ronny wasn’t who I was looking for, but I started toward the basement anyway. Went down the creaking stairs to find Ronny and Drew in front of the computers. They had been talking but quickly stopped when they heard me coming.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
Neither of them said anything. They just stared back at me. Finally Ronny glanced at Drew, who glanced back at him. Ronny touched his beard, played with it for a moment, then took a deep breath.
“You missed the service.”
“Did I?”
Drew said, “Are you here to tell us anything?”
“Such as ...”
Both men looked at each other again. Drew sighed and leaned back in his seat, folded his arms over his chest.
Ronny said, “The Kid emailed us already, Ben. He figured he would save you time when you got back. We already listened to the conversation between you and the FBI guy.”
“Wasn’t that thoughtful of him.”
Neither man answered.
I said, “Did he also tell you about Graham?”
Both of them looked confused.
“Okay, then. So where is Graham?”
“I think he’s out in the barn,” Drew said. He leaned forward in his seat. “But first, Ben, don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“What is there to talk about?”
Ronny dropped his hand away from his beard and cleared his throat. “Well, you were right for starters. Boojum is real. And this guy, if Drew and I get this straight, was lying through his teeth.”
I looked at them both for a long moment, not sure what to say. The monitors behind them were on. I focused on the monitor that showed the holding cell. Two of the four frames showed the Racist. Unlike before, where he doing nothing else but lying on his cot, he was now sitting upright, the stack of papers that told my story in his hands.
“He’s actually reading it?”
Drew nodded. “He called last night. He wants to speak with you.”
“Ben,” Ronny said. “Let’s not stray from the main problem here.”
“And what main problem is that?”
“Boojum.”
I took a few steps forward to get a better view of the holding cell. The Racist was indeed paging through the manuscript.
“Ronny, when was the last time you saw God?”
He didn’t answer.
“When was the last time you actually heard him speak to you?”
Still no answer.
“But you still believe in him, don’t you? You still believe he exists, even though you have no proof. It’s been the same for me these past few days. I’ve never stopped believing in Boojum.”
Ronny was watching me, no emotion in his eyes.
“And what can we do about it? Probably nothing. Carver’s dead. We already voted to disband. And even if we didn’t, like you said, what can we do against Caesar’s army?”
Both men shifted their gazes away from me.
“Anyway, right now I’m not worried about that. Right now I want to speak with Graham.”
Drew asked, “About what?”
“Come with me to the barn and you’ll find out.”
• • •
WE FOUND GRAHAM inside the barn working on the riding lawn mower. He wore dirty chinos and a sweatshirt. He heard us and glanced up, nodded once, went back to work.
“Graham,” I said.
“Hey, Ben.” Not looking up, still going about his task. “You missed a very nice service yesterday.”
“I want to talk to you about something.”
“So talk.”
“Carver’s childhood.”
Still not looking up as he went about tightening a nut on the rear tire. “Don’t know anything about it.”
“Because you met him in the army, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Only thing is, Graham, Carver was never in the army. He went to West Point, then into the FBI. No army.”
At this Graham stopped tightening the nut.
Ronny and Drew—both whom I’d given an abbreviated version of Carver’s childhood on the walk here—stood silent behind me.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything before, Graham?”
Graham took a deep breath and stood up. His joints popped like faint firecrackers. He grabbed a rag from his back pocket and wiped at his brow, his neck.
“I never saw a reason why I had to. It didn’t really make a difference.”
“Maybe not to us,” I said. “But it definitely did to you. It definitely did to Carver.”
“So what do you want to know?”
“The truth.”
Graham produced a thin smile and shook his head. “You were never lied to. None of you were.”
“Carver may be dead, Graham, but his memory isn’t. He never told anybody about his past. I want to know what happened afterward.”
“After what?”
“After he killed his stepfather.”
Graham looked up, almost startled.
I said, “After you and your wife adopted him.”
40
“You know, the more I think about it, I wasn’t even supposed to be working that night. It was a Thursday and I didn’t normally work Thursdays. The other detective—a man named Saunders—he had come down with a really bad flu. Had he been there instead, things definitely would have been different. Maybe none of us would be here right now.”
We were still in the barn, the four of us, Graham sitting on the vinyl-cushioned lawn mower seat, Drew and me sitting on two upside down apple crates, Ronny leaning against the locked door that led into the closet we used to keep all our weapons.
As Graham spoke he stared down at his hands, lightly rubbing his fingers against his thumb.
“The call came in around midnight. Not the original call that Carver had placed to bring the police out to the house. I’m talking about the call the two officers placed to me, saying that there was a murder. I went out there not sure what to expect. I’d lived in that town for a good ten years or so, and I pretty much knew everyone there was. I knew of the man and his wife who had taken in all those children, but I didn’t know him well.
“And then I got there and I saw just what kind of mess we were dealing with. You have to understand this town was in the southern part of the country, and while a lot of people didn’t come out and voice their opinions on segregation, it was alw
ays there right under the surface. And now we had a black boy shooting a white man to death. A man who was a well-respected teacher, for Christ’s sake.”
Graham rubbed his fingers together a little more. His face looked as if it had aged five years in the space of only minutes.
“I guess that’s news to all of you too, isn’t it? That I was a detective. You have to understand, Carver and I never made a conscious choice to lie about our pasts. We just ... we figured our pasts were in the past, so why even bother bringing them up? And Carver, when he first came and told me about what was going on and then first saved you, Ronny, and then you, Drew, he never didn’t tell me I couldn’t be open about my past. But I sensed it. Carver ... he was a haunted man. He didn’t want anybody to know about what he’d been through. He only wanted to worry about the present, about the here and now. And maybe, if he could, worry about how the present would affect the future.”
“So what happened?” I asked. “When you first arrived at the house?”
Graham forced a distant smile and dipped his head, stared back down at his hands and started rubbing his fingers against his thumb.
“Believe it or not, it wasn’t the first murder I’d investigated. Our town was small but it wasn’t that small. We had a couple murders a year. But now we had a child murdering an adult, and again, even though it had nothing to do with the act, race was an issue.
“The two uniforms had already gathered the children upstairs. They didn’t want them coming down and seeing the mess in the living room. And so they started talking to them, asking each of them separately what happened. I was there for some of it. I could see how scared those kids were, not from what happened, but from a previous threat. They may have known the man was dead but for some reason this didn’t seem to make them feel any better.
“Eventually I came in and took over. I tried my best with all the kids. Even Carver. Carver was the only one who told us everything. He wasn’t afraid. And I’ll admit, it was strange watching this ten-year-old boy tell us what had happened in this house. Not the story itself so much as how he told it. He never hesitated, he never seemed to worry that we were against him. He knew what he had done was wrong, but at the same time he knew it was the only way. And because of that, he wasn’t scared.
The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy) Page 19
